Knife Care
What makes a good knife?
How to make a knife
“Sever Forever”
The duty of a knife sharpener.
What qualities make a knife “good”?
I break this question down to three categories:
Aesthetic Appeal
Performance
Longevity
Aesthetic Appeal
This is the most outward indicator of quality, so it does matter. Good design and an interesting aesthetic will draw you to an object and make you want to have it around you more often, and make it obvious to anyone who sees it that it’s an object worth caring for.
Performance
The duty of a knife is to cut things of course, but what things? The geometry of the blade can be tuned for very fine cuts and have a very thin cross section which glides through a tomato with no effort, but then it will be too fragile to cut through a butternut squash without damage. It should hold up to daily use and also be thin enough to cut well. That’s where using high quality materials like advanced alloys makes a difference.
Longevity
Every time you sharpen a knife a little of it gets removed. The blade cross section looks like a triangle and sharpening makes the triangle shorter and more obtuse, AKA thicker, which is bad for performance. So the less often you have to sharpen it, the longer it will last. Also, the less you remove while sharpening, the longer it will last. Advanced alloys have compositions that include very hard carbides, think of them like the rocks in concrete. These carbides are what makes a knife stay sharp for a long time, it’s called “wear resistance”.
Keeping a knife in tip-top shape
Don’t put it in the dishwasher.
Even a stainless steel knife with a durable plastic handle will be tested by the dishwasher’s hot and caustic environment, and the jostling and banging around will damage the edge.
Carbon Steel vs Stainless Steel
Stainless steel has chromium in it which forms a very thin transparent oxide layer that resists corrosion, it’s not corrosion proof but depending on the alloy it’s very resistant.
Carbon steel will react with oils or acids that it comes in contact with, usually from food you cut with it but it could be from touching it with your skin. The reaction forms an oxide layer also, called a “patina”, and it does help somewhat with resisting further corrosion. But these types of steel can still rust if exposed to moisture for too long.
Caring for Carbon Steel
Use soap and water to wash it after use, then dry it off immediately. Keeping it dry is the main thing. Don’t try to scrub off the patina though, it’s there to help you. You can apply a little food safe wax to the blade to help with moisture resistance if you like.
Wood Handles
Wood is a natural material that absorbs and releases moisture depending on it’s environment, and when it does it changes size. This wood movement can cause glue joints to break and can cause wood to split or crack. So, wood does ask for a little more care. The same things you do for carbon steel basically, limit it’s exposure to water.
Sharpening vs Honing
Honing is using a hard rod to align the edge. If you think of the blade as a triangle, the point of it can get bent over during use and honing just bends that back into a point again. This is more useful on knives made with softer steel, there the strategy is that the steel doesn’t hold an edge as long as a hard steel but it’s easy to hone often and it’s less likely to chip or break with demanding tasks.
Sharpening uses some abrasive like a stone or diamonds to remove a little bit of material and restore the triangle to a nice pointy tip. Also known as the “apex”. Hard steels hold that edge much longer so you don’t have to sharpen them as often. A good sharpener will remove as little steel as possible to achieve the apex, that way the knife will have as long a life as possible.
Knife Sharpener vs Knife Maker
A good sharpener.
As a sharpener, I can make your knife edge razor sharp but I can’t change how long it holds that edge for. That’s a property of the knife steel and it’s controlled by the knife maker. I can sharpen a butter knife but it won’t stay sharp long!